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Patently absurd

A PLAN to make software patentable in the European Union descended into farce last week when a blizzard of amendments to proposed legislation succeeded in rendering it all but useless.

Since 2001, the European Commission has been pressing for a directive on computer-implemented inventions that would allow patents to be granted on software that is non-obvious and which has a clear “technical effect”. But open-source software developers, including Linus Torvalds, originator of the Linux operating system, have lobbied MEPs to reject the directive, saying it would stifle innovation. Powerful corporations could exploit the vague definition of patentable software to file …